


Specters

by 22to22



Category: Warframe
Genre: Other, equinox has lots of genders and none of them are binary thanks for coming to my TED talk, having a body is weird, nonbinary equinox, nonbinary tenno, self-harm mention, spoilers for second dream, unbeta'd use of sign language
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-29
Updated: 2018-03-29
Packaged: 2019-04-14 13:03:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14136603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/22to22/pseuds/22to22
Summary: Dante has a theory--more like a suspicion: warframes were not always just suits. There is something there, buried, something that harmonizes out of instinct when xe sings. All it needs is a little encouragement, a little time, and a little independence.





	1. The Zero Hour

Right on the border of Cetus there’s a small hut the Operator built. It’s a twenty minute walk to xir and Zephyr’s favorite fishing spot on the river, but so perfectly hidden in a pocket of the city wall that neither Grineer nor Sentient relic think to check there. Inside is a large, flat bed pushed against the western wall, low to the ground and covered in rough-hewn blankets from the market and soft handmade ratskin pillows filled with vulture feathers. A seam in the floorboards hugs the eastern wall, and if one were to persuade the sleeping kavat to move off it, the plank would unhook and lower down into a deep, quiet cellar, lit by soft blue Cetus lights without heat or electricity. Standing in a circle against the walls are figures, shifting on their feet, idling without consciousness: specters unattended. Warframes unpiloted.

They’re not meant to be kept outside of their casings like this, but between the haunted shadows defending the relays and the broken blade of War, Dante has a theory--more like a suspicion: these were not always just suits. There is something there, buried, something that harmonizes out of instinct when xe sings. All it needs is a little encouragement, a little time, and a little independence. The specters: small orbs xe usually calls upon when xe is over xir head in a mission, containing the gestalt of a warframe, the Ur, the base instincts and abilities that they all start with. Xe steadies the warframe’s head and wedges xir hands into its maw, pushing the orb through biomechanical architecture that can’t really be described as teeth or tongue. 

Xe leaves the drawer holding energy reserves open, the weapons locker closed, and the cellar door lowered. Daylight filters around xir form as xe walks back upstairs and, with the soft click of a latch, leaves the hut in silence.


	2. Slow Mornings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first thing Harrow can fixate on is texture.

Harrow is roused out of nonexistence when something soft and warm leans into his leg, rumbling like an idling engine. His fingers twitch, and a large cat head pushes into his palm and rasps an ugly meow. Harrow waits for his Operator to respond, to move his hand down the cat’s back and use his pointed fingers to scratch the scruff between her shoulders--but his arm is motionless, save for the kavat pushing it as she circles around to pet her cheek against his thumb again. No divine signal travels through his nerves. In fact--and he reaches for where xe ought to be--no Operator presides at all. Just a foreign shape pressing up behind his eye spots, warmed by his body temperature and humming several tones into his skull.

Points dig into his finger as the kavat mouths his hand, followed by the rasp of her tongue and more insistent headbutting and creaky meows. One of the humming tones from the shape reminds him of the impulses of the Operator’s signal, of the thought that precedes movement, and so he tries to match it.

His fingers convulse into a twitching fist. Startled, he falters; then uncurls his hand, and, of his own will, runs his hand down the kavat’s back.

She purrs.

Harrow stands there and pets the big spacecat until she gets tired of him, and leaves his side to trot up the ramp into the alien light. It’s too warm to be starlight, too direct and too golden to be the glow of Infested cysts. Harrow tries to nudge at the Operator, curious, then remembers he is alone, and refers back to the pressure in his head: what does walking feel like?

The tap of his boots echo against the stone floor, then click with less resonance along the wooden ramp out of the cellar. He runs his fingers along the edges of the cellar door as he walks up the ramp: metal trim embedded in wood, almost invisible to look down upon.

The kavat blinks at him from where she’s loafed, and then turns her head, ignoring him save for one long ear tracking him as he moves around the much smaller room. Light streams in from an open window and leaves a faint heat where it touches him. The walls are smooth and white, like the void halls, but scratches and dust mar the sterility he’s used to. Next to the window is a large cabinet, and next to that is a door, latched closed. The kavat purrs at him from a low platform covered in bolts of fabric banded white and grey and sometimes red. He lowers himself down into a crouch near her and her purring, somehow, gets even louder. He scratches behind her huge ears and her eyes close; his other hand settles on the fabric for balance and he recoils at the texture. It’s coarse, a broader weave than the banners hanging in the relays, not as thick as the robes draped from his waist. He pets the kavat’s soft forehead lightly with one hand, traces a rough red band on the fabric with the other, marvels at the contrast.

In fact, he’s so entranced that he doesn’t notice Equinox until they rap their knuckles sharply on the floor. He spins on his heel, one hand gripping the chain of his censer behind his back, to see their head poking up from the cellar, both horns converged on the same brow. He’s only seen an Equinox’s day and night forms converged on relays, strictly social spaces whose code forbids combat.

They give him a small wave.

He waves back and slowly releases his grip on the censer. Equinox moves further up the ramp. The sunlight catches a glint of red across their dark chest where a scar clefts them sternum to shoulder. When both their hands are above the floor, they sign, “I didn’t know you were awake.”

Harrow signs back: “Are you the Operator?”

They shake their head. “Xe is out fishing with Zephyr on the riverbank. I am haunted, like you.”

“Haunted?” Harrow copies the movement, bringing his fists close his chest and splaying his hands wide towards his sternum as Equinox walks onto the landing. They open their maw, the smooth center sliding back and the day and night halves parting to expose a round metallic object humming with energy.

“The Operator gave a specter to me three weeks ago.” It disappears back into their face. “We have been working together to make them more suitable towards autonomy. Xe told me you were next to get one, but I must have been idling when you came to.”

“The kavat woke me,” Harrow says, gesturing at the guilty animal and blinking his thumb and pointer finger near his eye spots.

Equinox nods. “Have you gone outside yet?” They ask.

Harrow shakes his head no. Equinox moves to a cabinet next to the door, opens it, retrieves two telescoped green rods, a handful of smaller metal orbs, and the narrow melted rainbow of a  Destreza rapier, which they strap to their hip. They pause to explain. “There’s nothing to fear, but it’s smarter to travel with a weapon. You favor chain weapons, yes?” They pull an Atterax from the cabinet and offer it to him. He nods and takes the coiled metal whip, slinging it across his back. It feels strange to have the weight of its chains ever present, unlike the void links of his censer, constant but weightless until he pulls it into existence.

The door creaks as it swings open, accompanied by a swirling burst of energy as Equinox separates into long-robed nox and broad-shouldered dies. Dies steps out into the sunlight, and Harrow silently follows.

He joins diem at the edge of a towering pillar. On either side of them, a blue force field stretches far away to other pillars; he can faintly see other structures through the hissing energy. But before them stretches the plains of Eidolon, peppered with the bones of ancient Sentients and Grineer encampments, and woven through by rivers and lakes. A Grineer carrier buzzes lazily ahead, almost at eye level, and distantly Harrow can see troops drop down from its belly to patrol. Behind him, he hears a loud and satisfying clunk as nox locks the door.

“It’s a long drop, but it won’t hurt,” dies signs, then offers a hand. Harrow takes it, and is for a moment too distracted by the soft leather and firm grip of diei gloved hand to notice the step off the ledge. The rush of wind slices up at them as they fall, and their impact sends a ripple through the tall grass where they land.

Dies lets go of his hand and dusts off one shoulder: _no problem._

As they walk, Equinox keeps a hand resting on the hilt of the Destreza, but diei shoulders are relaxed and the warframe is mostly watching Harrow take it all in. Dies gestures behind the buzzing blue wall and signs c e t u s, then presents one fist tilted at the wrist and covers it with the other hand in a C shape. “It’s independent, which Vay Hek doesn’t like. It’s also very loud, and full of people.” Equinox brings both hands together and swooshes them over the sides of diei’s head, trembling: _it’s a little overwhelming_.

Harrow glances back up at the pillar, unable to see the hut they came from, but points in faith that it’s still there, repeating the sign for Cetus and removing the C, “the blankets are from there?”

Equinox nods, then gestures to the plains and signs e i d o l o n. “An old sentient still walks here at night, but it won’t bother you if you leave it alone.” The scar persists across diei chest and Harrow briefly wonders if nox carries it, too. Dies turns and he realizes he must have been staring, and hurriedly searches around for something to bury his gaze: three vultures picking at a pile of old bones, unbothered by their presence a dozen meters away. He only glances over when Equinox starts to sign again, but won’t look at diem directly. “We can go fishing, or hunting, or the Operator keeps an extra mining tool if we find some ore. What we don’t keep, we can sell in town.” Equinox follows Harrow’s gaze to the round green tower of a grineer encampment, and waves flat hands in wild circles before exing them out: _don’t worry_. “The closer to the gates we are, the weaker their outposts.”

“Should we kill them?”

Equinox shrugs. “We can, sure, but they’ll be back before sundown.”

That doesn’t sit well with Harrow, and it must show, because Equinox continues, “the Operator doesn’t want us killing without good reason, anyway. Come on: xe’ll want to see you.”

Harrow’s stomach drops and he files behind Equinox as they walk down to the riverbank. Dante stands at the water’s edge of a flat rock next to a pile of enormous fish, one hand on xir hip, the other tapping a long fishing spear against the ground. Next to xir, Zephyr stands motionless, uninhabited, and Harrow’s throat tightens in jealousy, then guilt, then dread. Why did Zephyr still deserve the Operator’s presence? What did Harrow do to earn this excommunication? Had xe lost xir taste for transference altogether? He stops just shy of the boulder, and folds his hands behind his back to grip the sharp chains of his censer for penance and focus.

Equinox calls swirling energy into a loud burst to get Dante’s attention. Harrow feels a jolt as the red light passes through him on its way to a wide circle around them, and is distressed by the sudden anxiety spike it inspires. Dante turns, and xir face lights up with a smile. Xe leans the fishing spear against the pile of fish, many of whom are much larger than xe is, and moves to greet diem.

“I didn’t expect you!” Xe says, gathering diei hands in xirs. The sun brings out a richness in the Operator’s dark skin, the scar left by the void practically glowing across xir face, the blue and gold laurels brilliant against the deep violet curls of xir mohawk that shine vivid, almost pink, in the sunlight. The simple black jumpsuit he’s used to seeing xem in has been replaced by brown and gold leather, expertly tailored and draped with buttons and banners and the sort of details Harrow would expect to see on royalty.

Equinox bows diei head to touch Dante’s, and Harrow is again bemused by how small the Operator really is. Equinox pulls diei hands away and winks them open near diei eye spots, then interlocks diei thumbs and fingers in a chain, splaying diei hands out in blessing, signing large and exaggerated. Harrow flushes hot with embarrassment, and wishes dies would’ve just pointed to him to say he was awake.

Dante gasps. Harrow tightens his grip on the censer chain and stares more intently at his feet as xe approaches. Xe looks up at him and his face burns. Dante’s baritone voice speaks haltingly along with the slow rate of xir clumsy signing. “Hello, Harrow. How are you feeling?”

Harrow bows, but doesn’t touch xem. He goes to sign ok, and falters at their earnest smile, and swooshes his hands over the sides of his head in as brief a motion as he can before retreating back to grip his censer.

“Overwhelmed,” Dante repeats, and leans back out of Harrow’s personal space. “That’s okay! It’s a lot at once.” Xe raises a hand to xir mouth. “How is the specter? Does it hurt?”

Harrow mirrors Dante reflexively, touching the seam between his faceplate and his narrow beard. “It feels a little uncomfortable, but it doesn’t hurt. I’m learning a lot from it. I didn’t realize how much you handled--”

Xe interrupts in a panic, signing, “slower, please,” and Harrow pauses, realizing Equinox was not just being grandiose to embarrass him.

Harrow turns his pointer fingers at each other like turning screws and shakes his head. Then, he signs a W and scrunches his fingers as it passes across his face: _It doesn’t hurt, but it is weird_.

“That’s good! Is it ok in your head, or do you want it moved?” Xe pats xir chest, then xir stomach. Harrow nods and pats his chest; the humming would be less tinny if it were sourced there. “Okay. When you’re ready. I’ll meet you, at home, and I’ll move it, the next time you’re idling.”

Harrow nods tightly and tries not to squirm under all of this direct attention. Even Zephyr’s long beak seems pointed at him.

Equinox, blessedly, finally, speaks. “We are going exploring.”

Dante nods. “Don’t stay out past sunset. I will see you later,” xe bows respectfully to Harrow, who returns it. Xe then goes on xir tiptoes to kiss Equinox’s face, gloved fingers alighted on the warframe’s ringed ribs for balance. Equinox bows to comply and Harrow turns away, uncertain he ought to watch even this clandestine anointing. Then, a strange warped sound, and Zephyr takes up the fishing spear. Equinox loops diei arm through the crook of Harrow’s elbow and sweeps him away into a brisk walk along the riverbank.

Diei close proximity gives him a nervous shiver, but this contact lets him keep a hold of his censer’s chain, so he allows it. “Xe’ll sort it out so you’re more comfortable,” Dies promises. “I like to keep my specter behind my helmet’s center so it doesn’t shift out of place when I change forms, but you don’t have to worry about that.” Harrow listens to diem chatter until the Operator is out of sight around a bend in the river. Only then does he stop walking, and signs low, and quickly.

“What did we do wrong?”

Dies pauses and rubs knuckles in a circle against diei sternum close to the scar, head tilted in confusion. “Sorry?”

“Why has the Operator exiled us from transference and installed this shadow to walk instead?”

“Harrow, we are not exiled. The specter is not permanent, it’s a gift.”

“Even in the void, I had Rell. Xe expects this silence to be a boon? The Operator and I spoke through pure thought and emotion, and now we barely share a language.” An awful, dissonant energy builds in his head, making the specter’s resonance unbearable. He wants to get ahead of it, to wrap himself in the censer’s chains and drag the toothed links across his hide until all the bad vents out.

“You have the misfortune of waking early,” Equinox laments, “but we are still working out the kinks in the technology, and xe is learning--”

“To what end?” Harrow snaps. “To have us harvest resources for xem, like mindless extractors? To vacation in occupied territories?”

“To see if we become more than just war machines, if given the chance!” Equinox takes a step forward, adamant. “Aren’t you at all curious? You might deny it, but you and I, we thrive when our abilities support other people. Don’t you want to do that off the battlefield? Put food on someone else’s table? See your work put towards real, tangible good, instead of exchanging bloodshed for promises?”

“For this we have to be severed?” Harrow throws up his hands. “Of course you don’t understand. Of all the warframes, you would not conceive of loneliness. How could you?”

Equinox stares hard at him. “I’m not several people, Harrow, I am all of it. It’s all just me.” Harrow paces, and dies continues. “You think I don’t feel the same cold empty where the Operator should be? Of course I do. Of course I miss it. But yesterday, I wanted to know the most optimal course to climb that spire,” dies gestures to a monumental fossil spiking out of the ground, “and I spent two hours testing and refining my technique to peak efficiency, and you know what? I can scale it in two jumps, and found a perfect view of the valley, and there’s a fun little statue of a fish up there, which was a great surprise for me AND a treat I got to show the Operator, so if that doesn’t justify solitary autonomy I truly don’t know what to tell you.”

Distantly, Harrow sees the logic in Equinox’s words, and truth be told he would very much like to see this little fish statue, but all of this swirling anger and hurt makes it impossible to say so. To his silence, Equinox heaves a sigh, tossing him a small metal orb.

“When you’re ready to go home, use this to summon an archwing to scale the pillar. You can just jump up there, but it’s tedious. I’m going to go put my feet in the water. Do what you want.” Equinox walks past him, tromps around the bend of the river to a grassy patch, and sits down on the bank so that the water laps at diei calves.

That leaves Harrow truly all to himself, which he instantly dislikes. He uncoils his thurible and wraps the censer’s chain around his arms and chest, trying to excise the bad feelings with the bright and friendly pain he is accustomed to. It’s not enough. He pulls the Atterax from his back and snaps it free, eyeing the nearby Grineer encampment, but diei words about killing without good reason ring in his head, and he can’t justify it. So, he lashes out at the air with all the powers he can think of. When his energy is drained but his chest still burns, he stomps back across the plains to the pillar, pelts the orb at the ground, takes the archwing express up to a door it takes fifteen full minutes to rediscover, drops the unbloodied Atterax on the floor, and tosses his entire body, face down, into the pile of blankets.

The room is cool and quiet. Now that he is prepared for it, the rough-hewn texture of the blankets is not unpleasant. Then, he feels the blankets tug under a footstep, and paws drive a surprising amount of weight into his back as a rumbling kavat settles in for a nap on top of him.

That is also better than expected.

Slowly, steadily, the anger seeps out of him, and though he still reaches for the Operator--look, the kavat is making biscuits on his shoulderblades, the walls change color as the sun sets, the coolness of an untouched blanket makes shifting around worthwhile--he is also grateful that xe missed his tantrum, and grateful for the luxury of watching the evening descend, unhurried.

 

When the last light is almost gone, the door latch clicks open and gently closed. The clink of the Atterax on the floor near his head is not as quiet. He shifts to see Equinox’s twin horns leaned toward him, back in midform, signing, “please handle the Operator’s weapons with more care.”

Without waiting for a reply, they straighten and cross the room to slot their Destreza back into the cabinet. They look more dusk than dawn, somehow, their long sleeves trailing in soft waves.

The kavat stretches with a yawn and climbs down from Harrow’s back, leaving him suddenly chilly. He rolls over, sits up, wraps a blanket around his shoulders, picks up the Atterax a little guiltily, gets to his feet. He hangs the whip on a hook next to the Destreza and rubs his knuckles in a circle on his chest. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have snapped at you.”

Equinox nods and repeats the gesture back. “I should have given you more time to adjust. And, in hindsight, maintaining my Provoke probably didn’t help.” They close the cabinet doors. Harrow watches intently, but their energy is dormant, untapped: perhaps a byproduct of being in midform, perhaps just another part of the social contract. “Would you like company?”

“Yes.”

“Will you sit with me?”

“Yes,” and he kneels with them on the blankets. They fold their hands neatly in their lap, and Harrow fumbles for a moment for something to say, landing finally on, “what did you do today?”

“Sat in the river for a while. Gathered the attention of some fish, but scared them away before I could catch any. And saw the Operator off.”

“Off?” he echoes dimly.

“Xe was called away by business off-planet.”

“Oh,” he nods, as if understanding.

“Xe said xe’d be back in a day, two at the latest.”

The emptiness aches and Harrow’s body begins to slowly cave. “That’s too long.”

“What was your favorite thing today?” They ask, quickly. Harrow pauses and cycles back through the events, thinks about the sound of grass as he walked through it, the soft tickle of the taller weeds against his legs. He thinks of diei hand in his as they fell together.

“I liked the grass. And the jump.”

“Falling is fun,” Equinox agrees. “It’s my favorite part of missions sometimes.”

“Can’t hold hands in missions,” Harrow signs, obviously.

Their shoulders shake in a silent laugh. “If we did, we could only use secondaries. It would be more difficult, but nicer.”

They sit quietly together for a moment, and Equinox signs, “we don’t have to fall to hold hands,” and holds one hand out.

Harrow takes it. The seams and chits of mid-form Equinox’s gloves are in different places, the thick square padding on the back replaced by an elegant diamond. He runs his thumb over their knuckles, takes their hand in both of his, turns it over, curls their fingers in and then smoothes them out again. They’re elegant, with small square nails and tapered fingertips, unlike his that file down to a narrow point. Their long sleeve brushes against his arm, and he reaches to touch it, but pauses, looking at Equinox.

They nod, and sign with their free hand, “be gentle.”

Harrow runs his hand down the banner of their sleeve. It feels like the same well-worn soft leather, the diamond patterns deeply indented, and when he scoops it up between his hands, there is a soft give to it, unlike the hard muscle and bone of their arms.

“It feels bad to fold them,” they sign.

“Mine too,” he signs back, and pulls the hem of his robe--thinner, less substantial, the lines more like cartilage--placing their hand on it to feel. They trace the raised lines, and Harrow is only dimly aware of their movement; they would have to crush the fabric before he felt anything of note. In combat, it absorbs impact and deflects edges; he wonders how such sensitivity in their sleeves serves Equinox.

“We have similar piping,” they lay out a banner of their lower robe on top of his to compare it. It’s warm and weighty, and the thick lines in it echo the thin pattern on his thigh.

“We come from the same place?” Harrow suggests.

“Hard to say,” they shrug. “The Operator stole my parts from Tyl Regor, and who knows where he found them?”

He chances it, drawing a diagonal line down from his own shoulder. “What happened?”

Equinox hesitates, unsure of what to say, and finally settles on “Stalker. When the Operator and I were much younger.”

Harrow signs, “gently?” and Equinox nods and leans forward. He traces the scar up from their chest around their shoulder, and they twist so he can meet the other end close to their spine.

“I’ve never seen him leave a mark,” Harrow says.

“He doesn’t have that sword anymore,” they reply smugly.

The room is almost completely dark now; over Equinox’s shoulder, Harrow can see stars through the window, very nearly as clearly as he could from orbit. The warframes’ energy spots, usually only bright enough to register as color during the day, glow like beacons in the cool dark, his an almost garish intensity of aquamarine, theirs a deep stain of red ebbing up from cracks in their scar; but the only light strong enough to illuminate is the soft blue glow coming up from the cellar lanterns.

Harrow’s optics don’t rely entirely on light, of course; he fought in the vacuum of space for long enough to see without its luxury, but the way the blue light bathes the walls--and dulls Equinox’s deep maroon down to nothing--is interesting.

“The Operator mentioned moving the spectre ‘the next time I was idling’,” Harrow says. “What did xe mean?”

“Idling is when you rescind awareness for the purpose of passing time,” Equinox explains. “Like sleeping, but for shorter stints; hours instead of eons.”

“We can just idle until the Operator gets back, then,” he brightens. “A few days will be nothing.”

“Well,” they say slowly, “for most of it, yes, but xe’s given us some errands to run in town.”

“Errands?”

“They can wait till morning.” They take his hand again, brushing a finger along the harsh joints of his knuckles. “You’ve had an eventful day, you deserve a break.”

The gesture quiets Harrow’s questions, at least for now; the rhythm of it is soothing, like counting chainlinks. Eventually, their grip shifts, loosening but for their pointer finger and thumb trying to meet around the width of his hand; Equinox’s other hand lifts to their chest, wrist tilted, fingers curved and open but for a loop closed in the same gesture the held hand is attempting. Their body sways gently, and they don’t respond when he signs.

He wonders how they slipped into idle so easily, and spends the rest of the night trying to summon it for himself through focus and force of will; but the fathom of minutes between then and dawn could not be rushed, no matter how hard he tried.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Equinox has three sets of pronouns: dies/diei for day-form, nox/noctem for night-form, and they/them for midform. Thanks to ancienttexting for help with figuring out conjugations.

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this sitting in a gdoc for over a year and maybe posting it will help me finish it? If you dig it please leave a comment and let me know what's up! Also if I messed up the sign language /please/ let me know.


End file.
